“Hanging Blueberries” Copyright © 2008 Barbara W. Klaser
5 x 7 inches
watercolor, color pencil, pen and ink

When I wrote my first post about prayer beads, almost three years ago, I considered buying a ready-made strand or a kit. I started out wanting sandalwood beads, but my budget was constrained, and it wasn’t as if my prayer beads were a necessity.

Then I remembered a string of beads that were once my grandmother’s and had passed through a few family members’ hands before they came to me. Their string was literally on its last thread, so restringing them into a new form made sense. There were about 92 beads, and with the addition of some crystal beads that had been my mother’s as quarter markers, and a larger wooden bead I had on hand as the summit bead, they made a full mala of 108 beads. I added a crystal elephant I’d had for years, along with more crystal beads as counters.

At that time, I didn’t know what my beads were. But when I came across a photo of beads like them online, I learned they’re Job’s Tears. Job’s Tears are natural beads made from part of a grass plant, with numerous uses throughout the world. They’re a humble, common person’s rosary bead, easy to grow and replace. For more information, see the “About Job’s Tears” links below. Here’s a detail view of my Job’s Tears:

I know next to nothing about making jewelry or stringing beads. My experience is limited to stringing a few strands for myself, not very professionally, and making some tatted lace earrings years ago. But I had fun with this project, and the best thing was that I was able to stick to materials I had around the house. For the counters, I crocheted colored Pearle Cotton into a chain and found that the chain was just the right thickness for the crystal beads to slide over easily with my help, but to stay in place when left on their own. Here are detail views of the elephant and counter beads:

Ten counter beads may seem ambitious, but I wanted this string to fulfill any future goals I might have for working with mantras, prayers, or affirmations.

After using this Job’s Tears strand for a few months, I began to wish for an additional strand half the length or less, for use anywhere that a long strand wasn’t convenient or practical. Additionally, the Job’s Tears hadn’t been easy to restring. I’d used nylon beading thread, which isn’t the most modern, durable material, and the original holes in the beads were small, not always straight, and sometimes difficult to get my needle and string through. Since Job’s Tears are essentially dried flower buds, they’re somewhat fragile and they split easily. In spite of that fragility, they’re also woody, and the little splinters inside tear and fray the thread a bit as it passes through them. Since I slide the beads over the thread as I count, the more I use them the sooner I’ll need to restring them. If they were Job’s Tears I’d purchased, that wouldn’t matter. They’d be cheap to replace if any get lost when the thread breaks. But these particular beads have sentimental value. Next time I’ll try a different thread, and maybe I’ll knot the strand — which I haven’t tried before with beads.

Sanskrit mantra repetition has turned out to be a reliable sleep aid for me, as well as a good way to start the day, so I wanted a shorter strand I could keep by my bedside or carry in my purse. I decided on a half mala for my bedside table.

Finally I remembered some beads I’d made when I was playing around with polymer clay a few years ago. I’d made a necklace to match a favorite outfit, but I’d stuck the rest of the beads away in a jar. I had enough beads already made up for two quarter-malas (27 beads each) and one half-mala (54 beads).

One of the two quarter-malas didn’t turn out to my satisfaction, but I’m very happy with the other two, pictured below. I used more crystal beads as counters, and this time I attached them with a slipknot so I can remove them. That way I can wear the smaller strand as a bracelet without a counter dangling from it. These are strung with a doubled strand of sturdy, size 10 crochet cotton. My polymer clay beads are pretty unsophisticated, in fact rather primitive, with large holes, and even my fingerprints on some of them — so I guess I have to plead guilty that I made them. My favorite thing about them is the colors and shapes, which suit me just fine. Another advantage is that they don’t have splinters inside like Job’s Tears or sharp edges like some semi-precious stone beads, so they won’t wear the string out anytime soon. Of course there are more durable beading cords that can be purchased, but I’m still working with what I have on hand.

The purple beads look bluer here than they actually are:

I’m not sure polymer clay is the best material environmentally or energetically to use for prayer beads. Polymer clay is primarily PVC, which isn’t natural or biodegradable. But these beads have come in handy, and I don’t worry nearly as much about something happening to them as I do about my Job’s Tears, which carry sentimental value. I still use my Job’s Tears as well, because I love the natural feel of them in my hands.

I’ve recently remembered another craft supply that I bought and squirreled away to try later. Creative Paperclay modeling material is reportedly made of natural, biodegradable, and completely non-toxic materials. It can be fashioned into shapes and, once dry, it can be painted with water-soluble paint, sanded — basically treated like softwood — and then varnished or lacquered to protect the finished piece. I could even omit the varnish and let my Creative Paperclay beads gradually return to nature.

So my next prayer bead goal is to make beads out of Creative Paperclay and experiment with including ground dried rose buds, as a bow to the original rosaries, which were so named, according to some sources, because they were made from rose petals.

About Job’s Tears:

Encyclopædia Britannica: Job’s Tears

This Garden is Illegal: Job’s Tears: Gardening for Crafters

Wikipedia: Job’s Tears

Wayne’s Word (Palomar College Arboretum): Job’s Tears

The Most Worn Bead Plant

How to make rose petal beads:

Covington Innovations: Making Rose Petal Beads

Wendy Mukluk Domestic Recipes: Rose Petal Beads

Beads For Prayer: How To Make Rose Petal Beads

Catholic Culture: To Make Rose Beads for a Rosary

Associated Content: How to Make a 5 Decade Rosary Using Real Rose Petals

Knotted Prayer Ropes:

If you’re not interested in working with beads, but you count knot tying among your skills, you might want to consider making your own knotted prayer rope out of cord, following these instructions: How to tie an Orthodox Prayer Rope knot.

More prayer bead links:

Perhaps the most comprehensive and well-researched site I’ve found on prayer beads is Karen’s Prayer Beads, where Karen Deal Robinson covers many different traditions, how and why she designed her personal strings of prayer beads, and ideas about how to use them, including her own versions of some prayers.

Most of what I’ve learned so far about Sanskrit mantras has come from two books and a CD by one author, Thomas Ashley-Farrand:

Healing Mantras: Using Sound Affirmations for Personal Power, Creativity, and Healing

Chakra Mantras

Mantra Meditations for Creating Abundance (CD)

Thomas Ashley-Farrand’s focus is primarily on Hindu mantras, but Healing Mantras includes a few from other traditions as well.

I also own a book titled Meditation, by the late Eknath Easwaran, and several of his other titles are on my wish list. I recommend his writings for helpful information and instruction in meditation and mantra use, provided from an Eastern perspective (he was Indian by birth) translated for Westerners.

I find that repeating certain of these ancient mantras helps me gain peace and center myself. I try to select those that suit my individual needs. There are Sanskrit mantras for protection, for improving relationships, for healing, to enhance creativity or abundance, and for simple devotional practice. In a sense Sanskrit mantras have provided me a “reset button” for my brain, helping me to silence all the negative and cluttered thought patterns that modern life seems to burden us with.

If your interest is primarily in Buddhist mantras (also traditionally written or recited in Sanskrit), the most commonly used and most well-known one is Om Mani Padme Hum, with the Green Tara Mantra coming a close second: Om Tara Tuttare Ture Swaha. A search for either, enclosed in quotes, will lead you to numerous sites discussing their use. I’ll share just a few here. Tibetans pronounce the Sanskrit words a little differently than Buddhists from other places, and the first link below includes an amusing story about “correct” pronunciation.

Dharma Haven: Om Mani Padme Hum

Four Gates: Tibetan Chants and Mantra

Wildmind Buddhist Meditation: Buddhist Mantras

Religion Facts: Buddhist Mantras

Beads for non-spiritual practice:

You don’t have to be a Hindu or Buddhist — I’m neither — to benefit from Sanskrit mantra practice or meditation. Neither do you have to be a Catholic — I’m also not — to pray the Rosary. In fact, you don’t have to be spiritual or religious at all to use beads for repetition, affirmation, and focus. Someone who’s uncomfortable with any form of spiritual practice still might find strings of beautiful beads helpful for centering practice or for repeating affirmations to help improve their quality of life.

Various religious and philosophical prayer bead traditions and their associated prayers or mantras:

Health & Yoga: Using Mala Beads (Rosary) For Meditation

Wikipedia: Prayer Beads

Wikipedia: Anglican Prayer Beads

Wikipedia: Buddhist Prayer Beads

Wikipedia: Japa Mala

Wikipedia: Rosary

The Threshold Society: The Most Beautiful Names of Allah

The Catholic Rosary:

My prior post about prayer beads mentioned a book by medium John Edward on practicing the Catholic Rosary. Below are links to a few different Internet sites with guides for the Catholic Rosary. Though they’re similar in content, each offers slightly different tidbits of information about rosaries, and the Catholic Rosary in particular:

A Detailed Guide to Our Lady’s Rosary

How-To-Pray-The-Rosary.com

A Beginner’s Guide to the Rosary

How To Pray The Rosary

I could probably keep adding more, because this topic obviously fascinates me and I love to read about it. But if you’ve gotten this far and you still want to know more, I’m sure you’ll find your way to what you need on your own. If you decide to make or buy prayer beads and use them, I hope they provide for you the same peace and healing balm they have for me.

Though I’m still following the election process, now that the choices have narrowed down considerably, and I’m not nearly as enthused about the remaining candidates, the blog won’t focus so much on the election.

I’m sure this news will relieve some of you no end, if you’re even still following the blog. But be warned, I will now and then post some politics, just as I have in the past. It’s too important to ignore completely.

I moved the dates forward on the previous two posts to help redirect the blog again to a primary focus on poetry, art, creativity, and alternative spirituality. I know, cheating. She’s too lazy to even write a new post.

Update 02-15-2008:

A belated

HAPPY LOSAR

to everyone. Februrary 7th was the Tibetan New Year, the start of year 2135 Male Earth Mouse. For more information about Losar, visit Wikipedia’s Losar page or this site.

For more information about Tibet and China, you might want to read TWELVE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TIBET AND CHINA.

I’ve found more fantastic art journal blogs, ninajohansson.se, and Laurelines Drawings and Paintings. Links courtesy of Jana’s Journal and Sketch Blog. Laurelines also recently posted links to other Must-Read Art Blogs for 2008.

In case you haven’t been watching my link updates in the sidebar, please also be sure to visit Beverly Jackson’s new art gallery website, The Art Shack Studio. I met Bev when we belonged to the same writer’s group, before she moved away. I’m proud to count her as a friend, and a multi-talented one at that.

I’m adding art journal blogs to my blog list as I find ones that I can’t live without visiting regularly. My two newest links are to Jana’s Journal and Sketch Blog, and Princess Haiku (who visited me and commented a while back, leading me to watch her intriguing blog for a while).

I hope you all enjoy visiting these fresh, new to me blogs.

“Be the change that you want to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Ghandi

Growth
9 x 12 watercolor collage (click on image for larger view)

This painting’s background sat in my file cabinet for over a year, a cast aside experiment. I reworked it a little, adding bits of blue, and I nearly threw it away. But I have trouble throwing anything away. This summer I found a fallen avocado leaf I’d saved from a young tree. Its stem, when dried, curled into a spiral on its own. At first the actual leaf was part of the collage, but it proved too fragile, so I settled on a painted one. The abstract leaves were also scraps I’d painted, thought I’d never use for anything, and almost threw away.

I’m such a packrat, I’m not sure it’s good for me to get so much satisfaction from using my discards this way. Maybe it would be better not to encourage my hoarding. But I can’t argue with the sense of effervescence and growth this gives me personally. Some clutter is worth saving.

In this world, growth begins in shadow. Incubation, gestation, germination, all take place out of sight. We shelter and protect our young. As we grow, it’s a relief to duck back into familiar shadows now and then, or to at least be aware of them still behind us, to honor their place in our lives, the impetus they provided for growth, as well as a resting place at each stage of growth. Our shadows are part of our whole, they add perspective and depth to our existence. They’re a refuge when sunlight blazes too brightly and radiates summer’s heat. It’s easy to burn out under too constant, too bright a light. The cool, darker reaches sustain us and remind us that night time will come again, that winter will roll around. Everything lives and dies according to its cycle. In growth, that cycle is a trailing spiral, ever working it’s way both outward and inward, branching out, taking root, opening, closing, curling, unfurling, expanding, contracting. We come to know ourselves by incrementally opening, coming to know every self in existence, and recognizing our tiny niche in the greater whole, by seeing how the whole constantly shifts and changes, and by constantly shifting and changing ourselves as integral parts of that whole.

Fear resists change, holds it back, cutting some parts off from the whole until they wither and die. Love — loving unconditionally, embracing the whole in all its diverse elements and forms, both light and shadow — is the key to unlocking resistance and letting growth happen. Love is water dripping or condensing on leaves, trickling down stems or falling in drops to penetrate to roots. Love is water rising in vapor and mist, transpiring, evaporating to moisten other life. Love is movement, pushing its way up and out, toward the sun, stretching toward nutrients, nurturing the self, flowering, fruiting, and nourishing others, leaving seed behind to repeat the cycle.

I planned to post a poem, about posting work on the internet before it’s really finished. Ironically, that poem is not yet finished enough even to post unfinished. (See the category “Poetry Sketchbook” for my poems posted to date.)

So instead I’ll post a few links to what others are saying, and my take on some of them:

One House wrote earlier this month about one of my favorite passages by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, his advice on washing dishes, in More Dishes. I don’t have the book mentioned there, The Miracle of Mindfulness, but I have four of Thich Nhat Hanh’s other books, and his writings always bring me to a peaceful place. In particular I like his biography of Gautama Buddha titled Old Path White Clouds. The book I own that contains the dish washing essay is Peace Is Every Step, a compilation of short readings that can be opened to any page, any time. In the Foreword, the Dalai Lama voices his support of Nhat Hanh’s method of bringing about world peace through the internal transformation of individuals.

Those words reflect a personal belief of mine that the universe is held together by energy that’s a form of divine love, and that each of us is a conduit for that perfect, unconditional love. Each of us in this world, in our imperfection, has our little (or big) blockages and resistances to that energy. What I consider a very important purpose in my life is to gradually work out those resistances in myself, to let love flow freely, in me, in my life, and thus in my little part of the world.

I’m sure that seems simplistic to some, maybe even a little “goody-two-shoes.” I’m certainly not perfect at this. I have so many flaws, if they were physical holes I’d be see-through—and leaking like a sieve! But everyone needs a goal, something to work toward, right? That work can take me into the shadows, and it used to startle me when that happened, but I’ve learned that in order to clear out my resistance, I have to understand where it is, why it is, and what to do with it. That last part, what to do with it, can be the real trick. But for some of us, in some circumstances, acknowledging the resistance is there to begin with is the trickiest.

One of the best ways I know to encourage and spread love is through creativity. The language of art is universal. By showing others what we see, what our personal world looks and feels like, we encourage understanding, sharing, and taking an interest in what’s really happening — both inward and outward. Awareness of ourselves and each other can’t be a bad thing, provided we respect one another, and each other’s personal boundaries.

Kerrdelune, at Beyond the Fields We Know always leaves me a little breathless with her nature photographs, poetry and prose, and she did it again with The View From Here, which just sort of stopped me in my web-browsing tracks. No explanation needed. But she also posted recently in response to a prompt of “shoes” a photo and blog post that, well, resembled me. I don’t own any boots or snowshoes, don’t need them here. But like her, I used to think high heels were a necessary part of my life, especially when I worked in an office. I never could manage the really high ones, even then. Two inches were my limit. These days, my shoes are all flat, out of respect for my poor aching back, and those that I wear most days, if I wear shoes, are primarily functional. If they happen to look nice too, that’s a bonus. I like it that way! No more torture for beauty, especially a particular flavor of beauty — that state of fashionable or popular showboat perfection (always youthful and symmetrical and airbrushed) which, no matter what you do, only lasts a few years anyway, and that’s if you’re lucky enough to have it to begin with. Even if you have it, it’s way too much work to maintain, and not worth the trouble unless you’re a fashion model or making movies, and I’m not making movies, I’m living a life. My beauty priority at the moment is eating right and working very slowly and without undue pressure on losing weight — without dieting, without guilt, and being healthy, without shame over how I look right now. In fact, guilt has nothing to do with it. I’m losing it to help me feel better and be healthier, and that’s all. I have, by the way, declared a moratorium on guilt of all kinds. Beauty is a process to me now, a more authentic way of living my life.

When I turned 40, a friend of mine several years older told me that 40 was his best year. That was the year he finally stopped feeling it was more important to please others than to be himself. Maybe 50 is that year for me. Maybe I’m a slow learner. Maybe it’s something about being on the downhill slide of life. A slide should be fun. Even if I live to 100, it’s more than halfway over. Why spend it trying to be someone or something I’m not? Ah, it feels good just to say that.

I took a class once, provided by my employer, that was unusual as government-contracted classes go, in that the teacher asked us questions such as whether we could remember being born (one woman in class did remember her birth), whether we’d ever seen the human aura. He also taught us some things that were of a psychospiritual nature. If I remember correctly, the class was stress management, and not the half-day stress management class. This one was three days. I was in a stressful job at the time, and my boss knew it, acknowledged it, and — bless her heart — did what she could to help.

At one point the teacher asked if anyone in class was prone to migraines. When I raised my hand he fixed his gaze on me in a way that was almost mesmerizing, and asked why I thought I was responsible for everything, why I thought I had to be perfect. I nearly fell over. He’d nailed me. That is a tendency of mine, and I was in a job at the time that fed that tendency. It’s a losing place to be, because of course you never succeed. I always felt like a failure, no matter how much I did or how well I did it. Everything that went wrong filled me with remorse, guilt — even if I had nothing directly to do with it. And I’d been that way all my life. The fact that I remember that moment so clearly, five years or so later, is at least a good sign that I took him seriously, that I’ve been thinking about it, working on it. I have no idea how I got that way to begin with, maybe a nasty configuration of planets when I was born. I’ll blame Saturn and Mars this time around.

Turtleheart asks in Journaling Stuff:

“Do you regularly keep any kind of personal journal, online or off? What works best for you?”

I started out journaling on looseleaf notebook paper, as a girl. Sometimes I bought colored paper or a spiral notebook for a change. Later I collected bound blank books to journal in, but I feel freer handwriting on plain lined yellow pads, because I don’t care if I scratch out or mess them up.

Handwriting seems to connect me with my inner self more effectively than typing, so I write at least my initial pages of the day on notepads — sometimes all my pages of the day. Later I may transcribe what I want to keep onto the laptop. But I keep my older handwritten journal pages in folders in a file cabinet, filed by year. The years I write more fiction, I write fewer journal pages. That isn’t a conscious decision, just how it seems to work out.

For years I’ve done a full three pages of morning pages, if not more, in the manner of Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. Sometimes I miss a day or maybe a few. Recently I took a planned break of a few weeks from all my journal writing, just to see how it felt, to feel how the pressure built in me to begin again. In a recent fit of frugality I save paper by limiting myself to two pages, the front and back of one sheet, whenever I can. For my fiction writing and blogging, once I get a flow started on paper I’m happy to switch to typing, which is a lot faster.

For many years I’ve kept dream journals, which I usually write as soon as I waken, before the dream slips out of my memory. This can be a frantic dance as I juggle my own need to jot down a few details to jog my memory later, with the dog’s need to get outside now. As I have time, I’m transcribing those to a digital format, so I can search through them easily. I’ve found so many patterns in my dreams, that I’m glad I’ve tracked them for so long. There are repeating themes, important personal insights, and even a few precognitive dreams.

I used to write more poetry, and I just came across the folder full of poems I wrote during my late teens and early twenties, some of which I’ll post here soon. Some of those years’ journals were lost, when a storage shed I kept them in leaked during a heavy rain. Now I wonder, why don’t I write much poetry anymore? I still do, but so seldom. Reading through that folder made me itch to write something fresh. But I also noticed how much poetry I wrote, as a girl, about whatever boy I was infatuated with at the time, and how flowery some of it was. I know I’ve always been a romantic, but . . . sheesh. You’ll have to be gentle with me if I post any of that here. I was so young, even for my chronological age at the time. Reading it to myself makes me feel as shy as I felt back then. Never fear, I’ll be picky about what I post, and I do intend to edit first.

I like to draw and paint, so I’ve experimented now and then with visual journaling, most recently with colored pencils on black paper, after reading The Mandala Healing Kit Workbook by Judith Cornell, Ph.D. Strictly amateur stuff. Uh, my mandalas I mean, not her book.

I still have some of those pretty blank books, so not to waste them I use them to record special events, or as gratitude journals, which I’ve found especially healing to keep when I get into a period of sadness. I’m using one to track my mantra practice, and I may hand copy some of my favorite older poems into one, as a personal keepsake. Perhaps some of the more memorable dreams as well.

You simply must go to Beyond the Fields We Know and look at
December’s Full Moon of Long Nights. Kerrdelune has worked magic. It’s even better there than in my real sky.

This question is inspired by the Planet Sark Dreamcatcher page, and by a recent post by Jennifer at Creatrix.

My creative dream is to share stories and ideas, to help others in whatever modest, small ways I can, and to share the beauty I see in the world around me. To do this I engage in the writing craft, in reading Tarot, and in finding numerous other ways to express and memorialize those breathtaking moments in life that I wish would last a little longer.

I suspect the fleeting nature of bliss and beauty is what inspires many creative people to do what we do. (more…)

Copyright © 2005 Barbara W. Klaser